Lynne Turner says that she is lucky to be alive after the incident on Sunday February 10 in Nags Head Lane.

She said: “At the time I didn’t give it much thought, but when I got home I told me kids and they all said how lucky I was.

“Only then did it hit me how close the tree was.”

Lynne was on her way home to Ardleigh Green, from Brentwood when she says that she saw a sudden flicker of movement above her.

Almost in slow motion, she says she saw the tree come crashing down in the middle of the road. She was forced to stop with just a few feet to spare.

She said: “The weather was grim and had been raining all day with a bit of snow in the rain too so very cold.

“It was very weird, it was just a very strange feeling.

“I could see something falling , but I didn’t even have time to pull over at the side of the road because it would have hit me, I just had to stop suddenly.”

Lynne says that she was forced to get out of her car and with the help of five other drivers who had also stopped, managed to move the tree.

Another driver also helped to warn other drivers ahead.

Lynne wrote on website Streetlife “One of the gentlemen who got out of his car said “only seconds away” and I thought about that as I drove home.

“You just never know when your moment is up.”

She added: “I don’t know who owns the land on that side of the road, but I might avoid that lane for a while. I really don’t believe I would have seen it in time if it had been dark, so very grateful for a bit of twilight.”

A spokesman for Havering Council said that the incident had not been reported, but that the council’s team would be assessing the trees in the area.

Councillor Barry Tebbutt, Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “If a tree is reported as dangerous or has fallen, our teams will attend straight away, remove it and make the area safe.

“We carry out regular inspections on all of our trees. Rural roads are checked more frequently during bad weather as many privately owned hedgerows and trees, including in farms, aren’t as regularly maintained as trees on busy roads.”

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